Reading Archives

November 4, 2019 -- Special Event
Special 80s Night Event

Edmond Chibeau  
is a performance writer. He believes we are Microchip Aboriginals living in the Ur  civilization of the Digital Age. His work has been published in  The Nation,  Multicultural Review, New England Theatre Journal, The World, and elsewhere. His work has been performed at the Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Hall, the Knitting Factory, The  Ear Inn, Real Art Ways, and elsewhere. He teaches scriptwriting at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Christine Kalafus's
essays have appeared in The Woven Tale Press, The Writer in the World, and PAGE Arts Journal. "I Hear You Make Cakes," performed at Laugh Boston, was selected by The Moth for its podcast. Blueprint for Daylight is Christine's memoir-in-progress. It's a story of survival: from her husband's affair, a cancer diagnosis, twins, and the water in her basement - all determined to swallow her whole.

Margaret Plaganis
is a visual artist, writer, and educator. As a Connecticut master teaching artist, Margaret received grants to pilot creative arts programs which forged strong commitments to learning art and academic skills. Her collaborations with elementary and middle school educators in Hartford, along with her work with Very Special Arts CT and with the Yale School of Medicine, put her on a path to sixteen years teaching special education and visual arts in the Hartford Public Schools. She currently serves on the board of Hartford Performs. An exhibition of Margaret's sculpture and fabric was at Prosser Library in Bloomfield during February and March 2018, and her books of poetry can be viewed online in the Brooklyn Art Library digital collection: https://www.sketchbookproject.com/libraries.

Kathryn Fitzpatrick
is a recent graduate of Central Connecticut State University, where she received the Leslie Leeds Poetry Prize and the Barry Leeds Critical Essay Award. Her essays, called "biting, brutally honest, and inappropriate" by her high school principal have been featured in or are forthcoming from Cleaver Magazine, Bodega, Gravel, Out Magazine, and more. She lives in Thomaston, CT.

Pegi Deitz Shea
is a two-time award winner of the Connecticut Book Award and the author of more than 400 published articles, essays, and poems for adult readers. Her works for young readers frequently focus on human rights issues, while her poetry for adults has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Ireland of the Welcomes, The Examined Life Journal, and others. She teaches in UConn's creative writing program. Toying with the term "phoetry," she also exhibits her photography and poems together. She founded and directs Poetry Rocks!, a quarterly reading series in Vernon, CT.

Jonathan Andersen
has recently completed Rage for Me, his first young adult novel, and Augur, his second full-length collection of poetry. He is the author of Stomp and Sing(Curbstone Press, 2005) and the editor of the anthology Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other U.S.A. (Smokestack Books-UK, 2008). His poems have appeared in many periodicals, including The Cafe Review, Connecticut Review, Counterpunch, Exposition Review, Freshwater, The Progressive, and Rattle, among others. He also has work forthcoming in The Chiron Review, Common Ground Review, and The Worcester Review. A professor of English at Quinebaug Valley Community College, he lives in Storrs with his wife, fellow writer and educator Denise Abercrombie, and their two sons Kit and Miles.

October 1, 2019 -- Special Event
Connecticut Lit Fest Kick-Off!

Joan Seliger Sidney
is the author of  Bereft and Blessed, Body of Diminishing Motion: Poems and a Memoir,  and  The Way the Past Comes Back.  She has received individual artist poetry fellowships from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, and elsewhere. She’s writer-in-residence at the University of Connecticut’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life.  In addition, she facilitates Writing for Your Life, an adult writing workshop.

James M. Chesbro
is the author of A Lion in the Snow: Essays on a Father’s Journey Home. His work has appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, America, The Washington Post, Essay Daily, The Millions, Huff Post, and Brain, Child Magazine, among others. Essays from A Lion in the Snow were chosen as notable selections in The Best American Essays series 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018, as well as The Best American Sports Writing 2014. He lives in Fairfield with his wife and three children. He teaches at Fairfield Prep.

Benjamin S. Grossberg's
books include Space Traveler (University of Tampa, 2014) and Sweet Core Orchard, winner of the Tampa Review Prize and a Lambda Literary Award. A new full-length collection, My Husband Would, will be published by the University of Tampa Press next year. His poems have appeared widely, including in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. He is Director of Creative Writing and a Professor of English at the University of Hartford.

September 9, 2019

Mika Taylor's
work has appeared in Granta, Ninth Letter, The Kenyon Review, Tin House, and others. She was the recipient of the 2015-2016 Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin and earned an MFA from the University of Arizona.

Kem Cormier
is the author of Balance Act and The Tragedy in My Neighborhood. He has released three collections of original music, and he also makes radio fiction and documentary pieces, many of which have aired on public radio affiliates around the U.S. and on the BBC. He directs the creative writing program at Quinnipiac University.

Luisa Caycedo-Kimura
is a Colombian-born poet, translator, and educator. She was the 2014 John K. Walsh Residency Fellow at The Anderson Center, the 2014 Adrienne Reiner Hochstadt Fellow at Ragdale, and a 2013 Robert Pinsky Global Fellow. Luisa holds an MFA from Boston University. A former attorney, Luisa left the legal profession to pursue her passion for writing. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her poems appear in The Cincinnati Review, Sunken Garden Poetry 1992-2011, Mid-American Review, Nashville Review, Jelly Bucket, Connecticut Review, Connecticut River Review and elsewhere

May 6, 2019

Sarah Gilligan
is currently completing The Genius of Connecticut, her collection of short stories set in the Hartford of the 1980s. She previously wrote a series of essays about her tangle with breast cancer and has run her writing and graphic design firm, Cerebration, for more than twenty-five years. Her work has been published in the Two Sisters Writing & Publishing First Annual Anthology, and she earned an honorable mention in the 2017 Short Story America Prize. Sarah lives in Windsor with her husband and two daughters.

Aaron Tillman
is associate professor of English and director of the Honors Program at Newbury College. His short story collection, Every Single Bone in My Brain, was published in July 2017. He received the John Gardner Memorial Prize for Fiction from Harpur Palate, a Short Story Award for New Writers from Glimmer Train, and he is a two-time Pushcart nominee. More details available on his website: aarontillmanfiction.com.

Lisa C. Taylor
is the author of two collections of short fiction, including Impossibly Small Places and Growing a New Tail. Lisa’s honors include the 2015 Hugo House New Works Award and several Pushcart nominations in both fiction and poetry. Alongside Geraldine Mills, she presented at the Elizabeth Shanley Gerson Irish Literature Reading at the University of Connecticut in 2011. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous journals, including WomenArts Quarterly Journal and The Worcester Review.

April 1, 2019

Eileen Albrizio
is a former ABC and NPR radio news host and journalist, a career which earned her numerous first-prize honors from the Associated Press and the Society of Professional Journalists. She has a BFA in Theatre and an MA in English and is the author of numerous volumes of poetry and short literature. Her book The Box Under the Bed won the 2015 Paranormal Poetry and Prose Prize. Her debut novel, The Windsome Tree: A Ghost Story, was published in May 2018.

Ron Farina
served in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. He earned a B.A. in Creative Nonfiction from Central Connecticut State University and is currently pursuing an MFA at Western Connecticut State University. Farina's essay "A Keyhole" was featured on NPR. His short story “A Place More Kind Than Home" is scheduled for hard-copy release in January 2019 as part of the anthology The Odds Were Against Us. His current work-in-progress, “At the Altar of the Past,” a love story set during the Vietnam War, is scheduled for completion in mid-2019.

Megan Collins
is the author of The Winter Sister. She has taught creative writing at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and Central Connecticut State University. She is also the managing editor of 3Elements Literary Review. A Pushcart nominee, her work has appeared in many journals, including Rattle, Spillway, and Tinderbox.

March 4, 2019

Sherri Bedingfield
has been published in numerous literary journals, including Caduceus, Journal of Poetry Therapy, and Connecticut River Review. One of her poems was selected by West Hartford town poet laureates for the Poetry in the Parks project. Sherri has written two books of poetry: Transitions and Transformations and The Clattering, Voices from Old Forfarshire, Scotland. She’s on the board of directors of the Riverwood Poetry Series and works as a psychotherapist and a family therapist.

Ginny Lowe Connors
is the author of several poetry collections, including Toward the Hanging Tree: Poems of Salem Village. Her chapbook Under the Porch won the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. Connors has also edited a number of poetry anthologies, including Forgotten Women: A Tribute in Poetry and Laureates of Connecticut - among others. She is the editor of Connecticut River Review. Connors runs a small poetry press called Grayson Books.

Pegi Deitz Shea
is a two-time award winner of the Connecticut Book Award and the author of more than 400 published articles, essays, and poems for adult readers. Her works for young readers frequently focus on human rights issues, while her poetry for adults has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Ireland of the Welcomes, The Examined Life Journal, and others. She teaches in UConn's creative writing program. Toying with the term "phoetry," she also exhibits her photography and poems together. She founded and directs Poetry Rocks!, a quarterly reading series in Vernon, CT.

February 4, 2019

Sebastian Stockman
is an associate teaching professor in the English Department at Northeastern University, where he also directs the writing minor. He has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe, as well as The Millions, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Georgia Review. His essays have been notable selections in The Best American Essays and The Best American Sports Writing collections.

Amanda Bloom
has work published or forthcoming in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, Matchbook, and elsewhere. Her story "Charles" was a finalist for the Fall 2017 Arcturus Award for Fiction and a nominee for the Pushcart Prize. "A Hopeful Animal" was published in The Cardiff Review and was a fiction finalist in the 2018 Iowa Review Awards. Amanda is a fiction editor at the New Haven Review. Find her at amandabloom.com and on Instagram @bloomamanda.

Edmond Chibeau
is a performance writer. His work has been published in The Nation, New England Theatre Journal, EAR Magazine, and California Quarterly. His work has been performed at the Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Hall, the Knitting Factory, The Ear Inn, and Hygienic Art. He has worked with John Cage, Alison Knowles, and Charles Bernstein, among others. He teaches scriptwriting at Eastern Connecticut State University.

December 3, 2018

PR Griffis
is currently completing a novel about punk rock, Texas high school football, alcoholism, and the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. He lives in Willimantic, CT with Mika Taylor, his writer wife, and Petunia Van Scampers, their crime-solving wonderpup.

Paul Beckman
was recently featured in The Best Small Fictions 2016, and his story "Mom's Goodbye" was the winner of the 2016 Fiction Southeast Editor's Prize. He's been widely published in Playboy, PANK, Litro, the Blue Fifth Review, and the Raleigh Review. Kiss Kiss is his newest flash collection. Paul also had a story selected for the 2018 Norton Anthology New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction.

Mary Collins
worked for twenty years as a freelance writer and editor in Washington, D.C. for a range of clients, including National Geographic andSmithsonian. She also taught part-time at John Hopkins before returning to her native Connecticut in 2007 for a tenured position at Central Connecticut State University. There, she teaches narrative nonfiction and has previously served as the director of the Center for Teaching and Faculty Development. She has published three adult nonfiction books and five young adult nonfiction books, has worked as an artist-in-residence for the National Park Service, and has written many award-winning essays.

November 5, 2018

Ryan Curcio
is a student at Central Connecticut State University. He studies English with a minor in writing. He is currently a contributing writer for Trill! Magazine and is also an intern reporter for the New Britain Herald. His work has appeared in undergraduate literary magazines, on 121words.com, and is scheduled to appear in Crack the Spine's 240th issue.

Michael Downs
is the author of three books set in his birthplace of Hartford. The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist, his latest, explores the life of the man credited with introducing general anesthesia - and thereby changing the world. Downs's awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maryland State Arts Council. A former Hartford Courant reporter now living in Baltimore, Downs is a professor of English at Towson University. Find him at http://www.michael-downs.net.

Ruth Danon
is the author of Word Has It, Limitless Tiny Boat, Triangulation from a Known Point, and Living with the Fireman. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous publications, including The Paris Review and Fence. She graduated from Bard College and received her PhD from the University of Connecticut. For twenty-three years, she taught in the creative writing program she designed and directed at NYU. She now teaches and lives in Hudson Valley, New York. She is currently working on a memoir about growing up on the grounds of a mental hospital in upstate New York. She lives with her husband, the painter Gary Buckendorf.

October 1, 2018

Joan Seliger Sidney
is the author of Bereft and Blessed, Body of Diminishing Motion: Poems and a Memoir and The Way the Past Comes Back. She has received individual artist poetry fellowships from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center. She is the recipient of a Visiting Faculty Fellowship from Yale. She’s writer-in-residence at the University of Connecticut’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. In addition, she facilitates Writing for Your Life, an adult writing workshop.

Robert Cording
has published eight collections of poems, the most recent of which are Walking with Ruskin and Only so Far. He taught for thirty-eight years at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts. He has received two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in poetry, and his poems have appeared in such publications as The Nation, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, The Hudson Review, and The New Yorker.

Gray Jacobik
is a university professor emerita from Eastern Connecticut State University. She is the author of several award-winning collections of poems: The Double Task, Brave Disguises, The Surface of Last Scattering, and Little Boy Blue: A Memoir in Verse. Her book The Banquet: New & Selected Poems received the 2016 William Meredith Award for Poetry; for this collection, Gray also received a lifetime achievement award from the Connecticut Center for the Book for her contributions to the literature of Connecticut. For more about her work as poet, please visit her website: grayjacobik.com. For more about her work as a visual artist, visit grayjacobikartist.com.

September 10, 2018

Ken Cormier 
is the author of Balance Act and The Tragedy in My Neighborhood. He has released three collections of original music, and he also makes radio fiction and documentary pieces, many of which have aired on public radio affiliates around the US and on the BBC. He directs the creative writing program at Quinnipiac University. More info at: thebenjysection.com/kencormier

Mika Taylor's
short stories have appeared in Granta, Ninth Letter, The Kenyon Review, Tin House, and others. She was the recipient of the 2015-2016 Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellowship from the University of Wisconsin and earned an MFA from the University of Arizona.

Meghan Evans
is a creative writing teacher at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and a professor of ancient literature at Central Connecticut State University. She received her BA from Trinity College and her MFA in fiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College.

May 7, 2018

Aimee Pozorski
is author of Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works and Falling After 9/11: Crisis in American Art and Literature. She has edited Roth and Celebrity, the Critical Insights volume on Philip Roth, and the forthcoming Roth After Eighty. Aimee is a professor of English at Central Connecticut State University, where she also directs the MA Program in Literature. She is currently at work on a creative project entitled It's Nothing You Did.

Gerda Walz-Michaels
was born in Northern Germany. She studied English and pedagogy at the University of Hamburg and also taught there. In 1984, she moved to the U.S. At UConn, she received an MA in Judaic studies and education and a PhD in education. She has taught at various colleges in Connecticut. In 2000, she wrote "My Country," her first poem, which won first prize in the Windham Poetry Festival. In 2011, she published "The Ocean Carries Me," her first book of poetry. "Stone Walls," her second book, followed in 2015. She lives with her husband in Storrs. She has three children who live in Germany and two step-daughters in the U.S. She makes regular visits to Germany.

Daniel Donaghy
is the author of four poetry collections, including Start with the Trouble, which won the 2010 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the Milton Kessler Poetry Award. Somerset, his newest collection, is due out in 2018, and he also authored Streetfighting, which was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. His writing has appeared in The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, The Southern Humanities Review, Quarterly West, The Missouri Review, and many others. Both his poetry and fiction have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is a professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University, which recently awarded him its 2015 Board of Regents Faculty Teaching Award, and he is also the current poet laureate of Windham County.

April 2, 2018 -- Special Event

For the first time, we will be hosting a reading of ekphrastic prose and poetry. In true ekphrastic tradition, participants will be responding to works of visual art; in this case, we're talking about a small selection of Edward Hopper's paintings.

Featuring the writings of:

Melissa Wyse
is a fiction writer and essayist. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Rumpus, Shenandoah, and Urbanite. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University and has been awarded fellowships and residencies at the McDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Ragdale Foundation. She is the recipient of an Individual Artist Ruby Grant, and she serves as the writer-in-residence at the Pomfret School. Melissa is the founder of Idlewild Arts, which holds its annual Idlewild Writers Retreat here in Connecticut. She is currently completing a collection of linked stories set in World War II-era Hawaii titled Moon Over Sand Island.

Edmond Chibeau
is a performance writer. His work has been published in The Nation, Multicultural Review, New England Theatre Journal, The World, EAR Magazine, California Quarterly, and Santa Barbara News and Review. His work has been performed at the Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Hall, the Knitting Factory, The Ear Inn, and Hygienic Art. He has worked with John Cage, Alison Knowles, and Charles Bernstein, among others. He teaches scriptwriting at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Christopher Morris
is a history and English major at Eastern Connecticut State University, the ECSU writing program assistant, and the editorial assistant at Elephant Rock Books. His work has been featured in the 2015, 2016, and 2017 issues of Eastern's student literary arts journal Eastern Exposure. He is currently working on edits to The Kids Who Killed on Berkshire Street, his first novel.

Margaret Plaganis
is a visual artist, writer, and educator. As a Connecticut master teaching artist, Margaret received grants to pilot creative arts programs which forged strong commitments to learning art and academic skills. Her collaborations with elementary and middle school educators in Hartford, along with her work with Very Special Arts CT and with the Yale School of Medicine, put her on a path to sixteen years teaching special education and visual arts in the Hartford Public Schools. She currently serves on the board of Hartford Performs. An exhibition of Margaret's sculpture and fabric will be at Prosser Library in Bloomfield during February and March 2018, and her books of poetry can be viewed online in the Brooklyn Art Library digital collection: https://www.sketchbookproject.com/libraries.

Aaron Caycedo-Kimura
is a poet and visual artist. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Poet Lore, Off the Coast, the San Pedro River Review, the Connecticut River Review, Crack the Spine, and elsewhere. His paintings have appeared in galleries throughout Connecticut, including the John Slade Ely House in New Haven, the Westport Arts Center in Westport, and the City Lights Gallery in Bridgeport. Aaron is also the author and illustrator of Text, Don't Call: An Illustrated Guide to the Introverted Life.

Pegi Deitz Shea
is the two-time winner of the Connecticut Book Award and the author or more than 400 published articles, essays, and poems for adult readers. Her works for young readers (poetry, fiction and nonfiction picture books, and novels) frequently focus on human rights issues. Her poetry for adults has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Slag Review, and Connecticut River Review. More pieces are forthcoming in Forgotten Women, published by Grayson Press, and Earth's Daughters. She teaches in the creative writing programs at the University of Connecticut and at the Mark Twain House in Hartford.

March 5, 2018

Claudia McGhee
has had a long and varied career as a poet-in-residence, journalist, freelance editor, software technical writer, writing outreach project coordinator, and e-book producer. Paperlight, her chapbook of poems, was published in 2016 by Finishing Line Press. Her work has also appeared in a number of publications, including the Connecticut River Review, The Anvil's Ring, The Dandelion Review, and the anthology WAVES: A Confluence of Women's Voices. Now that she is finally retired, she is working on a collection of science fiction short stories which might someday add up to a memoir.

Emily Lyon
received her MFA from Southern Connecticut State University. She's looking for a home for her first novel, an account of an American woman living in Tel Aviv during the Second Intifada. She taught creative writing for a couple of years, but she now runs a record shop (recordsthegoodkind.com) and works as a flight attendant. She writes about flying in the first person.

Lisa C. Taylor
is the author of both the short story collection Growing a New Tail and of four collections of poetry. Lisa’s honors include the 2015 Hugo House New Works Award, several Pushcart nominations in both fiction and poetry, and a Best Indie Lit of New England nomination. Alongside Geraldine Mills, she presented at the Elizabeth Shanley Gerson Irish Literature Reading at the University of Connecticut in 2011. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous journals, including WomenArts Quarterly Journal and Worcester Review.

February 5, 2018

Danielle Pieratti
won the 2017 Connecticut Book Award for Poetry with Fugitives, her first collection. She is also the author of two chapbooks: "By the Dog Star," the 2005 winner of the Edda Chapbook Competition for Women," and "The Post, the Cage, the Palisade." Danielle holds an MFA from Columbia University and is the writing programs leader for the Connecticut Writing Project. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two young children.

Chris McAuliffe
is currently completing A New Map of the World, a memoir about a family with three children who are far from what society considers "normal." Rose, the youngest, has Down syndrome; Katie, the middle child, is bisexual; and Aaron - formerly Erin - is gender queer. Rose has faced medical crisis after medical crisis but has progressed against many an outdated expectation. Katie and Aaron, meanwhile, have clashed with adults' misunderstandings of their sexual identities - with life-threatening consequences.

Kathryn Fitzpatrick
is a prose reader for the Adroit Journal, the former head editor of The Helix Magazine, and a bank teller. Her work, described as “biting, brutally honest, and inappropriate,” by her high school principal, has been published in Out Magazine, Unbroken Journal, and Gravel, among others. She is currently co-editing an anthology for Woodhall Press called Flash Nonfiction Food and lives in Thomaston, CT.

December 4, 2017

Aaron Tillman
is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Honors Program at Newbury College. His short story collection Every Single Bone in My Brain was published in July 2017. He received a Short Story Award for New Writers from Glimmer Train Stories, and his fiction has appeared in several journals, including Glimmer Train and Mississippi Review. More details are available on his website: aarontillmanfiction.com.

November 6, 2017

Sarah Gilligan
is currently completing The Genius of Connecticut, her collection of short stories. She has previously written a series of essays about her tangle with breast cancer, and she has been running her writing and graphic design firm Cerebration for more than twenty-five years. Her work has been published by Two Sisters Writing & Publishing, and she recently earned an honorable mention in the 2017 Short Story America Prize. Sarah lives in Windsor with her husband and two daughters.

Ellen Meeropol
is the author of three novels: Kinship of Clover, On Hurricane Island, and House Arrest. A former nurse practitioner and bookseller, Ellen's recent essay publications include The Writer, Guernica, The Cleaver, Necessary Fiction, and Writer's Chronicle. She is co-founder and board president of Straw Dog Writers Guild.

Joan Seliger Sidney
is the author of Bereft and Blessed, Body of Diminishing Motion: Poems and a Memoir (an Eric Hoffer Finalist, 2015) and The Way the Past Comes Back. She has received individual artist poetry fellowships from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center. She is the recipient of a Visiting Faculty Fellowship from Yale. She’s Writer-in-Residence at the University of Connecticut’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. In addition, she facilitates "Writing for Your Life," an adult writing workshop.

October 2, 2017

Ronald Mallett's
breakthrough research on time travel has been featured in media around the world, and he appeared in the award-winning documentary How to Build a Time Machine. In 1975, he joined the physics faculty at the University of Connecticut, where he is currently Research Professor of Physics. Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality, his acclaimed memoir, has been translated into Korean, Chinese, and Japanese.

Matthew P. Winkler
visits schools to give presentations and to lead workshops related to his TED-Ed video "What Makes a Hero?" and his nonfiction book Mentoring Teenage Heroes: The Hero's Journey of Adolescence. Matt will read another installment from his YA adventure series Across the Line, plus a scene from his memoir about the year he spent homeschooling his son through the sixth grade and their quest to skateboard in all fifty states. Learn more at MatthewPWinkler.com.

Melissa Wyse
is a fiction writer living in Pomfret, CT. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Shenandoah, Urbanite, and decomP. Melissa is currently completing a collection of linked short fiction set in World War II Hawaii titled Moon Over Sand Island. In addition to her work as a writer, Melissa teaches writing at Pomfret School, manages the Silver Circle Art Center in Pomfret, and is the founder and director of Idlewild Arts, which hosts the annual Idlewild Writers Retreat here in Connecticut each autumn.

September 11, 2017

Meghan Evans
is a creative writing teacher at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and Professor of Ancient Literature at Central Connecticut State University. She received her BA from Trinity College and her MFA in Fiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence College.

David Michaels
was born in New York City to immigrant parents. He spent two years with the Peace Corps in Thailand; taught linguists at UConn for over thirty years; and also taught university seminars in Pisa, Bilbao, Vienna, Salzburg, and Munich. "Kalganov in Love," the short story from which he will be reading tonight, is his first venture into fiction writing.

Jacqueline Sheehan
is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Comet's Tale, Lost & Found, Now & Then, Picture This, The Center of the World, and The Tiger in the House. She writes NPR commentaries and essays for the New York Times column Modern Love. Jacqueline was awarded residencies at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland, the Jentel Arts Colony in Wyoming, and at Turkey Land Cove on Martha's Vineyard. She teaches workshops at Grub Street, Writers in Progress, and with writer Patricia Lee Lewis in Guatemala and Scotland.

May 1, 2017

Jonathan Andersen
has recently completed Rage for Me, his first young adult novel, and Augur, his second full-length collection of poetry. He is the author of Stomp and Sing (Curbstone Press, 2005) and the editor of the anthology Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other U.S.A. (Smokestack Books-UK, 2008). His poems have appeared in many periodicals, including The Cafe Review, Connecticut Review, Counterpunch, Exposition Review, Freshwater, The Progressive, and Rattle, among others. He also has work forthcoming in The Chiron Review, Common Ground Review, and The Worcester Review. A professor of English at Quinebaug Valley Community College, he lives in Storrs with his wife, fellow writer and educator Denise Abercrombie, and their two sons Kit and Miles.

Mollie Kervick
is a PhD student in English and Irish literature at the University of Connecticut, where she concentrates in contemporary women's writing, feminist theory, and motherhood studies. She is currently working on a project that explores vampires, breastfeeding, and the Irish nation. Mollie also writes poetry and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in places such as The Paradise Review, Torrid Literature Journal, and Kneejerk Magazine. She has also been published on the website IrishCentral (at irishcentral.com).

Matthew Winkler's
passion for teaching and learning has propelled him twice around the world and through all fifty states. He currently teaches English, Robotics, and Invention Convention at The Rectory School while gathering material for a YA bestseller. Matt's popular TED-Ed Lesson "What Makes a Hero?" evolved into his newly released book Mentoring Teenage Heroes: The Hero's Journey of Adolescence.

April 3, 2017

John Surowiecki
is a UConn alumnus and the author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks. He has won a number of poetry prizes, including the Poetry Foundation Pegasus Award, the Pablo Neruda Award, and the Washington Prize. John’s work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Carolina Review, Mississippi Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, West Branch, and many other journals.

Melissa Wyse
is a fiction writer living in Pomfret, CT. She has been awarded fellowships at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She will also hold a residency at Ragdale this summer. She is the recipient of the Myra Sklarew Award and an Individual Artist Ruby Grant from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Shenandoah, Urbanite, and decomP. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from American University. Melissa is currently completing a collection of linked short fiction set in World War II Hawaii titled Moon Over Sand Island. In addition to her work as a writer, Melissa also serves as an educator and arts administrator. She teaches writing at Pomfret School, manages the Silver Circle Art Center in Pomfret, and is the founder and Director of Idlewild Arts, which hosts the annual Idlewild Writers Retreat here in Connecticut each autumn.

Gerda Walz-Michaels
was born in Northern Germany. She studied English and pedagogy at the University of Hamburg and also taught there. In 1984, she moved to the U.S. At UConn, she received an MA in Judaic studies and education and a PhD in education. She has taught at various colleges in Connecticut. In 2000, she wrote "My Country," her first poem, which won first prize in the Windham Poetry Festival. In 2011, she published "The Ocean Carries Me," her first book of poetry. "Stone Walls" (Antrim House), her second book, followed in 2015. She lives with her husband in Storrs. She has three children who live in Germany and two step-daughters in the U.S. She makes regular visits to Germany.

March 6, 2017

Julie Shigekuni
is the author of four novels: A Bridge Between Us (Anchor, Doubleday, 1995), Invisible Gardens (St. Martin's Press, 2003), and Unending Nora (Red Hen Press, 2008). Her fiction has been translated into German, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. Shigekuni was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award and the recipient of the PEN Oakland Josephine MIles Award for Excellence in Literature. She has received a Henfield Award and an American Japanese Literary Award for her writing. She is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico.

Brian Sneeden's
Last City, a collection of poems, is forthcoming from Carnegie Mellon University Press (2018). His work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Harvard Review, TriQuarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other publications. Translations of his poems have appeared in international magazines in Greek, Albanian, and Serbian. He received his MFA from the University of Virginia, where he held a Poe/Faulkner Fellowship in creative writing. He is Senior Editor of New Poetry in Translation.

February 6, 2017

Pegi Deitz Shea
is the two-time Winner of the Connecticut Book Award and the author or more than 400 published articles, essays, and poems for adult readers. Her works for young readers (poetry, fiction and nonfiction picture books, and novels) frequently focus on human rights issues. Her poetry for adults has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Slag Review, and Connecticut River Review. More pieces are forthcoming in Forgotten Women, published by Grayson Press, and Earth's Daughters. She teaches in the creative writing programs at the University of Connecticut and at the Mark Twain House in Hartford.

Gint Aras (Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas)
lives in Oak Park, Illinois with his family. He's a community college instructor, photographer, and has worked as an editor, columnist, interpreter, and translator.

Meghan Evans
graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with an MFA in Creative Writing. She is a teacher at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts in Hartford and a Professor of Literature at Central Connecticut State University.

December 5, 2016

Meghan Evans
earned her BA in English and Creative Writing from Trinity College and her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a Professor of Literature at Central Connecticut State University and an Artist Instructor in the Creative Writing Department at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. She also spent some time abroad with a writing residency in Wales. She is currently working on a YA novel.

Jeremy Schwartz
is the rabbi of Temple Bnai Israel in Willimantic, CT and an avid translator of Hebrew literature, especially poetry. He is a recipient of The American Literary Translators Association Conference Fellowship and has published translations of the works of two pioneers of non-Orthodox Israeli spirituality: A.D. Gordon and Ari Elon.

November 7, 2016

Christopher Morris
is a history and English major at Eastern Connecticut State University, the Writing Program Assistant (AKA right-hand man) at ECSU’s writing center, and an employee at Elephant Rock Books. He is also President of the Eastern Writers Guild and Editor-in-Chief of Eastern Exposure, ECSU's literary magazine in which he has twice published his short fiction. Chris is currently working on edits to Three Hours, his first novel.

Eleanor Reeds
is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the University of Connecticut, where she also works as a coordinator in the Writing Center. Her poems have appeared in Long River Review, and she won the 2016 Wallace Stevens Student Poetry Prize. Eleanor was raised in the UK and is currently working on her first chapbook, a Penelopiad provincially titled, Reading Tarot Cards at Wayne Franklin's House.

Aimee Pozorski
is author of Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works and Falling After 9/11: Crisis in American Art and Literature. She has edited Roth and Celebrity, the Critical Insights volume on Philip Roth, and the forthcoming Roth After Eighty. Aimee is Professor of English at Central CT State University, where she also directs the MA Program in Literature. She is currently at work on a creative project entitled It's Nothing You Did.

October 3, 2016

Emily Howard:
The captain of a losing field hockey team at Madonna High School. A Romanian landlady who baked donuts for her tenants. A stage mom for a one-eyed, snaggle-toothed cat. A senior reporter who investigated an eco-retreat on a Brazilian island. A Scottish coal miner who ran numbers in a Pennsylvania steel mill. Emily Howard is a retired physician who likes to write stories and poems.

Edmond Chibeau
is a performance writer. He believes we are Microchip Aboriginals living in the Ur civilization of the Digital Age. His work has been published in The Nation, Multicultural Review, New England Theatre Journal, The World, EAR Magazine, California Quarterly, and Santa Barbara News and Review. His work has been performed at the Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Hall, the Knitting Factory, The Ear Inn, Real Art Ways, the Windsor Art Center, and Hygienic Art. He has worked with John Cage, Alison Knowles, Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Bernstein, among others. He teaches scriptwriting at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Matthew Winkler's
passion for teaching and learning has propelled him twice around the world and through all fifty states. He currently teaches English, Robotics, and Technology of Design at The Rectory School while gathering material for a YA bestseller. Matt’s popular TED-Ed lesson “What Makes a Hero?” evolved into his forthcoming book, Mentoring Teenage Heroes: The Hero's Journey of Adolescence.

September 12, 2016

Jilly Gagnon
has had her writing featured in Elle, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Hairpin, The Toast, and The Rumpus, among others. She is currently at work on both a humor book and a young adult novel.

Raouf Mama
is a Faculty Row Super Professor and a Distinguished Professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University. He is the only one in the world today who tells folktales from his native Benin in English, French, Yoruba, and Fon. He is the author of five books: Why Goats Smell Bad and Other Stories from Benin; Pearls of Wisdom; The Barefoot Book of Tropical Tales; Why Monkeys Live in Trees, winner of the 2008 National Multicultural Children's Book Award; and Fortune's Favored Child, a memoir. He will be reading from his forthcoming e-book It Was a Beautiful Day and Other Personal Quiet Miracle Stories.

June 6, 2016

Lisa C. Taylor
is the author of the short story collection Growing a New Tail and four collections of poetry. Lisa’s honors include the 2015 Hugo House New Works Award, Pushcart nominations in both fiction and poetry, and a Best Indie Lit of New England nomination. Alongside Geraldine Mills, she presented at the Elizabeth Shanley Gerson Irish Literature Reading at the University of Connecticut in 2011. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous journals, including WomenArts Quarterly Journal and Worcester Review.

Diane Vivona
is thrilled to be making her debut at the Roar Reading Series. Her writing has appeared in Gallery Crawl, The Dance Insider, and The Movement Research Journal. On a daily basis, she writes and advocates for contemporary art in the hope that more people will come to know and love it. Currently, she does this at the New Museum in New York City.

David Capella
is a poet and Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University. He has co-authored two widely used poetry textbooks: Teaching the Art of Poetry: The Moves and A Surge of Language: Teaching Poetry Day to Day. He was the featured poet in the 2014 summer issue of Italian Americana and released his latest novel, Kindling, in December 2015.

May 2, 2016

April 18, 2016

Meghan Evans
earned her BA in English and Creative Writing from Trinity College and her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a Professor of Literature at Central Connecticut State University and an Artist Instructor in the Creative Writing Department at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. She recently returned from a writing residency in Wales. She is currently working on a YA novel.

March 7, 2016

Daniel Donaghy
is the author of four poetry collections, including Start with the Trouble, which won the 2010 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the Milton Kessler Poetry Award. He also authored Streetfighting, which was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. His writing has appeared in The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, The Southern Humanities Review, Quarterly West, The Missouri Review, and many others. Both his poetry and fiction have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is a Professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University, which recently awarded him its 2015 Board of Regents Faculty Teaching Award.

Aimee Pozorski
is author of Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works and Falling After 9/11: Crisis in American Art and Literature. She has edited Roth and Celebrity, the Critical Insights volume on Philip Roth, and the forthcoming Roth After Eighty. Aimee is Professor of English at Central CT State University, where she also directs the MA Program in Literature. She is currently at work on a creative project entitled, It's Nothing You Did.

Susan Schoenberger
of West Hartford, CT is a writer, editor, and copy editor with a long history of working for news organizations. Susan is now the Director of Communications for Hartford Seminary and teaches occasionally at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford. Her short stories have been published in Inkwell and various other publications. Her debut novel won the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition in 2006. Her work in progress is tentatively titled, "Under the Rainbow." Please check out her website (susanschoenberger.com), follow her on Twitter @schoenwriter, and/or like her Facebook page (Susan Schoenberger Author).

December 7, 2015

Steve Ostrowski
is a poet, fiction writer, and songwriter. He's published two chapbooks of poems (In Late Fields, from Bright Hill Press; and Birds, Boys, God, from Finishing Line Press) as well as a chapbook of stories (A Pile of Crosses, from ELJ Publications). His first novel, The Last Big Break, is scheduled for publication in 2016 from Double Life Press. He teaches at Central Connecticut State University.

Anne D'Alleva
is an art historian and mother of three. When she's not balancing the scholarly and the familial, she is Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut; head of the Department of Art and Art History; and chair of UConn Reads, the university's community reading project.

Larry Druckenbrod
has been a college administrator, a headhunter, a bookseller, a career counselor, and an aspiring writer. He hopes to cap his working life as the shortstop for the Yankees.

November 2015
CCSU Night

Leslie McGrath
is the author of Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage, a poetry collection; and two chapbooks, Toward Anguish and By the Windpipe. McGrath's latest book is a satiric novella in verse entitled, Out From the Pleiades. She teaches creative writing and literature at CCSU and is series editor of The Tenth Gate.

Tom Hazuka
has published three novels, over fifty short stories, and a book of nonfiction entitled, A Method to March Madness: An Insider’s Look at the Final Four. He has edited or co-edited six anthologies of short stories: Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Funny, Sudden Flash Youth, You Have Time for This, A Celestial Omnibus: Short Fiction on Faith, and Best American Flash Fiction of the 21st Century (Shanghai, China). He teaches fiction writing at Central Connecticut State University.

October 2015

Jonas Zdanys
is a bilingual poet and translator and author of forty-four books. He has received a number of prizes, book awards, writing and travel grants, and public recognitions for his own poetry and for his translations. He has taught at the State University of New York and at Yale University. He was a scholar-in-residence at the Yale Center for Russian and East European Studies. He is currently Professor of English and poet-in-residence at Sacred Heart University, where he teaches seminars on modern poetry and directs the program in creative writing. Learn more at jonaszdanys.org.

September 2015

Daniel Donaghy
is the author of four poetry collections, including Start with the Trouble, which won the 2010 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the Milton Kessler Poetry Award. He also authored Streetfighting, which was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. His writing has appeared in The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, The Southern Humanities Review, Quarterly West, The Missouri Review, and many others. Both his poetry and fiction have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is a Professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University, which recently awarded him its 2015 Board of Regents Faculty Teaching Award.

Christopher Torockio
is the author of Floating Holidays, a novel, and of two collections of stories, most recently The Truth at Daybreak. His short fiction has appeared in The Antioch Review, Denver Quarterly, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, Willow Springs, and many other publications. He teaches at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Ron Farina
served in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. He earned a B.A. at Central Connecticut State University and is currently pursuing an MFA at Southern Connecticut State University. Farina's essay "A Keyhole" was featured on NPR and published in In-Country and Back. His award winning short story Unbreakable Embrace was published by the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. He’s currently seeking publication for a collection of short stories based on his tour in Vietnam.

June 2015

Sergio Troncoso
is the author of five books. The Nature of Truth is a novel about a young researcher at Yale who discovers that his boss, a renowned professor, hides a Nazi past. Troncoso is a resident faculty member of the Yale Writers’ Conference and an instructor at the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center.

Anne D'Alleva
is an art historian and mother of three. When she's not balancing the scholarly and the familial, she is Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut; head of the Department of Art and Art History; and chair of UConn Reads, the university's community reading project.

Carol Dowd-Forte
is authoring her own coming-of-middle-age tale. Carol is president of A Girl's Gotta Eat: Writing and Editing for a Price; founder of The Alley, a writers' support group; and a former stringer for the Miami Herald. She has given a TEDx Talk, performed stand-up comedy, hates the color pink, and has survived both the New York City public schooling and transit systems. Before becoming a writer, she was a zygote.

May 2015

Mary Collins
worked for twenty years in Washington, D.C. for National Geographic, the Smithsonian, and others. Her last book, American Idle: A Journey Through Our Sedentary Culture, won the Grand Prize in Nonfiction at the Indie Book Awards. She's working on a series of essays that explore raising a transgender child. Her essay "Mapping Modern Grief" recently appeared in the Potomac Review. She teaches at Central Connecticut State University.

Emily Lyon
received her MFA from Southern Connecticut State University. She's looking for a home for her first novel, an account of an American woman living in Tel Aviv during the Second Intifada. She taught creative writing for a couple of years, but now runs a record shop (recordsthegoodkind.com) and works as a flight attendant. She writes about flying in the first person.

Jilly Gagnon
has had her writing featured in Elle, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Hairpin, The Toast, and The Rumpus, among others. She is currently at work on both a humor book and a young adult novel.

April 2015

Mark Ferguson's
debut novel, The Lost Boys Symphony, was published by Little Brown & Co. on March 24th. A bit of a genre-bender, this time-traveling coming-of-age story is infused with the angst of mental illness and young love. It was named a Spring 2015 Barnes & Noble Discover Pick. Kirkus says, "This book, like good music, will sweep you up." His novel-in-progress, tentatively entitled, The Empathy Machine, again uses a science fiction conceit--in this case a form a virtual reality--to examine questions about identity, sanity, and love. Mark is a freelance graphic designer and book marketer now living in New Jersey.

PR Griffis
is currently completing a novel about punk rock, Texas high school football, alcoholism, and the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. He lives in Willimantic, CT with his writer wife, Mika Taylor, and Petunia Van Scampers, their crime-solving wonderpup.

Leslie McGrath
is the author of Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage, a poetry collection; and two chapbooks, Toward Anguish and By the Windpipe. McGrath's latest book is a satiric novella in verse entitled, Out From the Pleiades. She teaches creative writing and literature at CCSU and is series editor of The Tenth Gate.

March 2015

David Capella,
is a poet and Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University. He has co-authored two widely used poetry textbooks: Teaching the Art of Poetry: The Moves and A Surge of Language: Teaching Poetry Day to Day. He was the featured poet in the 2014 summer issue of Italian Americana and released his latest novel, Kindling, in December 2015.

Ellen Litman
is the author of two novels: Mannequin Girl and The Last Chicken in America, a finalist for the 2007 LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the 2008 New York Public Library Young Lions Award. She is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Connecticut.

Deborah Ann Davis
is an author, educational speaker, personal trainer, and longtime educator. She's the author of the YA books Fairly Certain and the forthcoming Fairly Safe. For years, her daughter and money went to college. Deborah now invites sedentary people (i.e., writers, students, etc.) to move with her through her Wiggle Writer blog at www.DeborahAnnDavis.com.

Elephant Rock Books: Stories You Won't Forget

Contact us if you're interested in scheduling a reading.

November 4, 2019 -- Special Event​Special 80s Night Event

October 1, 2019 -- Special EventConnecticut Lit Fest Kick-Off!